The Monster Poem Cycle: #3 (rewritten like WHOA!)

I was never exactly happy with this particular poem (I still think The second poem is the best, so far). But today's entry at "Rolling around in my Head" (blog): http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2012/05/no-ones-tone.html really brought home how unhappy I was with it, and more important, why.

So I wrote it over from the beginning, this afternoon:


THE MONSTERS' ANXIETY

Protected from the mainstream's quickened pace,
We're gathered here like flotsom in the weeds
United just by coming to this place:
"The Campus Registry for Special Needs"
As different from each other as from those
Who tell us where to sign, and where to go.

We know that we are lucky to be here,
And neither locked away, nor even dead.
And yet, in spite of Love, we still have Fear:
The knowledge: "I'm a monster" in our heads.
We're set apart, like coins in some machine --
Been counted, sorted, "valued," all our lives.
We've felt the stares of pity: cold and keen,
And yet, the pity rises in our eyes.
For we, as well, have learned what elders taught
On how to know an Adult from a Child,
So our identities are fragile -- caught
Between what's in our dreams and what's been filed.
We wait together in this quiet hall;
We glance. But do we see the Truth... at all?